(WP 2024-05) Emerging Engagement between Philosophy and Philosophy of Economics: Parfit, Simon, and Sen

This paper investigates philosophy’s engagement with one social science, economics, via the philosophy of economics. It first distinguishes mainstream philosophy of economics and heterodox/non-mainstream philosophy of economics, and then argues that the latter’s increasing recourse to analytical reasoning in philosophy to advance its critiques of mainstream economics points toward a new engagement between philosophy of economics and philosophy. To provide grounds for this argument, the paper discusses shared thinking of three key figures: philosophy’s Derek Parfit and from economics Herbert Simon and Amartya Sen. It argues their respective critiques of dominant ideas in their fields reflect a little discussed convergence in thinking between philosophy and economics through heterodox/non-mainstream philosophy of economics. This convergence is argued to reflect a shared commitment to one philosophical conception of temporal sequences, namely, the past-present-future as opposed to the before-after sequence. Philosophy’s future engagement with economics as a social science, the paper concludes, builds on the role this conception plays in both in the future.